[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 35, Number 12 (Monday, March 29, 1999)]
[Pages 520-521]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]
<R04>
Videotape Address to the Serbian People
March 25, 1999
As you know, the United States and its NATO allies have begun a
military campaign to reduce President Milosevic's ability to make war on
the people of Kosovo. I want to speak candidly to all Serbian people, to
explain our reasons for this action and how there could be a quick
resolution of the crisis.
First, I cannot emphasize too strongly that the United States and
our European allies have no quarrel with the Serbian people. We respect
your proud history and culture. We joined together on many occasions,
including our victory over nazism in World War II. Our own history has
been honored by the contributions of Serb families who came to America
to start a new life.
But our common future has been put in jeopardy by a war that
threatens the peace of Europe and the lives of thousands of innocent
people in Kosovo. After exhausting every other option, all 19 members of
NATO--from France to Poland, from Italy to Greece, from across Europe to
Canada and the United States in North America--all of us agree that only
swift action can save peace in the Balkans.
Let us turn from Serbia's history to the facts of the last 10 years.
There has been too much propaganda and too little plain truth. President
Milosevic has spoken often of Serbia's standing in the world, but by his
every action he has diminished your country's standing, exposed you to
violence and instability and isolated you from the rest of Europe. He
waged senseless wars in Bosnia and Croatia, which only ended after
enormous bloodshed on all sides. And he lost a cruel campaign against
the Albanian people of Kosovo. It was not simply a war against armed
Kosovar forces but also a campaign of violence in which tanks and
artillery were unleashed against unarmed civilians.
Now, one out of eight people in Kosovo have been driven from their
homes, entire villages have been burned and cleared of their people.
Thousands of Serbs also have suffered and been forced from their homes.
As a result, the bitterness in Kosovo is deeper than ever, and the
prospect that Kosovars and Serbs will be able to live together in the
same country has been harmed. No one has benefited from all this,
certainly not Serbia.
We understand the region has more than its share of painful history,
and we know that all peoples of the former Yugoslavia have their
legitimate grievances. The NATO allies support the desire of the Serbian
people to maintain Kosovo as part of your country. With our Russian
partners, we insisted on that in the peace talks in France. The result
was a fair and balanced agreement that would guarantee the rights of all
people in Kosovo, ethnic Serbs and Albanians alike, within Serbia.
The Kosovar leaders accepted that. They agreed to demilitarize their
forces and to end the paramilitary attacks on Serbs that also have
contributed to the crisis. At the invitation of Serbs and Kosovars, NATO
troops, under the agreement, would be deployed in Kosovo as keepers of
the peace, not as some occupying force.
Now, I know the Serb Government and many Serbian people may not see
NATO that way. And it is true that it was the Kosovar Albanians who
insisted on NATO peacekeeping forces but largely because of President
Milosevic's violations of his own commitments regarding the use of
police and military units.
Nevertheless, I want you to understand that NATO only agreed to be
peacekeepers on the understanding that its troops would ensure that both
sides kept their commitments and that terrorism on both sides would be
brought to an end. They only agreed to serve with the understanding that
they would protect Serbs as well as ethnic Albanians and that they would
leave when peace took hold.
Now, only President Milosevic rejected this agreement. He could have
kept Kosovo and Serbia and given you peace. But instead, he has
jeopardized Kosovo's future and brought you more war. Right now he's
forcing your sons to keep fighting a senseless
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conflict that you did not ask for and that he could have prevented.
Every time he has summoned Serbia's history as a justification for such
action, he has imperiled your future. Hopefully, he will realize that
his present course is unsustainable; ultimately, it is self-destructive.
The sooner we find a peaceful resolution of this dispute, preserving
Kosovo within Serbia while guaranteeing the rights of its people under
your law, the sooner Serbia can join the rest of Europe and build a
nation that gives all its citizens a voice and a chance at prosperity.
The NATO nations have tried to avert this conflict through every
means we knew to be available. Each of us has ties to Serbia. Each
respects the dignity and the courage of the Serb people. In the end we
decided that the dangers of acting are outweighed by the dangers of
allowing this conflict to continue, to worsen, to claim the lives of
more innocent civilians, including children, to result in tens of
thousands of more homeless refugees.
Now all of us--Americans, Europeans, Serbs, Kosovars--must join
together to stop driving wedges between people simply because they
belong to different ethnic groups and to start accepting that our
differences are less important than our common humanity and our common
aspirations.
I call on all Serbs and all people of goodwill to join with us in
seeking an end to this needless and avoidable conflict. Instead, let us
work together to restore Serbia to its rightful place as a great nation
of Europe; included, not isolated, by the world community; respected by
all nations for having the strength to build peace.
Note: The address was videotaped at approximately 7:30 p.m. in the
Roosevelt Room for later broadcast on the United States Information
Agency Worldnet. In his remarks, he referred to President Slobodan
Milosevic of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro).
A tape was not available for verification of the content of this
address.